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The best mods of all time!

Enhancing your gaming experience need not be a laid back affair. You can take up matters into your own hands and create marvels like these below!

Counter-Strike and DOTA

These mod needs no introduction. You’ve all played it and if you haven’t, you don’t deserve to be reading this magazine in the first place. Get your head out from under that rock and start playing some real games.

Aliens TC

You young ‘uns will need an introduction to this mod. Aliens TC is a total conversion mod for the original Doom. What set this mod apart at the time, while making it one of the bets mods of all time, was the fact that it did a very good job of recapturing the essence of the movie, creating a game that was fun and tense and quite exhilarating. A considerable achievement considering the limitations of the engine (we’re talking about a game that’s 20 years old now, and a movie that’s about 35 years old).

DayZ

You won’t have to squeeze any game developer very hard before half a dozen or so zombie-related game ideas come pouring out of every orifice. But DayZ is different. DayZ is the most realistic zombie games ever made, as realistic as a game that justifies the existence of zombies of course. This game is special because it’s a hardcore military sim (ARMA II) that’s been transformed into a zombie game of epic proportions. The resultant gameplay was so gritty, that the creators of ARMA allowed Dean Hall (DayZ’s was his brainchild) to create a stand-alone game with their engine and support.

OSP for Quake III

The best mod ever in our opinion. Yes, we’re heavily biased towards Quake III, but with good reason. It’s the most challenging and fun arena games around (Shush! Don’t argue with us) and OSP simply makes it better. Gone are the unnecessary laws of physics and inertia, replaced by God-like command of the skies! Some of you might argue that CPMA is better and more “balanced”, to that we say “Phooey! You know not what you talk about, boy!”

Red Orchestra

Unreal Tournament 2004 is another of those games that’s been etched into our memories as a fun, fast-paced shooter (a far second to Quake III of course), but one mod changed all of that — Red Orchestra. This is a mod that transformed an arena deathmatch game into one of the most compelling and realistic World War II games ever made. The list of “realistic” features include gun overheating, interchangeable machine gun barrels, manual adjustments of sights (that’s adjustment for range, which you have to estimate yourself) and many other such features. This is a mod with a comparatively small, but very dedicated and hard-core following and was successful enough to spawn a whole slew of sequels.

Complex Mod

When it comes to RTS games, few games come as close to achieving perfection (in our books) as the Homeworld series, Cataclysm being our favourite. That being said, Homeworld 2 is really not such a bad game, and Complex mod takes that to the next level. The mod vastly expands on the scope of Homeworld 2’s units and research by introducing a whole bunch of new units, research trees and a very detailed and Complex command structure. This mod is not for the meek and requires a deep understanding of every unit’s strengths and weaknesses, as well as the ability to formulate battle strategies on a scale never before seen in the franchise. If you’re a fan of the series and are looking for more of a challenge, this is the mod for you.

Team Fortress

There are many of you who are aware of the existence of this mod, but there are very few of you who know that Team Fortress was originally a Quake mod (to those who knew that, bravo). The very same class-based multiplayer battle that we know and love, especially in Valve’s current iteration, began life as a Quake mod in 1996, before even Counter-Strike and Half-Life ever existed. Give this one a whirl, if only as a mark of respect to a great franchise.

Out of Hell

With production values comparable to any AAA game out there, this total conversion mod for UT2004 pushes the game’s aging engine to the limits of its capabilities to produce one of the most atmospheric and challenging zombie survival games we’ve seen in a long time. The amount of detail in the level design and texture is astounding and it’s hard to fathom the effort that went into the creation of this gaming experience. Released in 2009, this mod has stood the test of time very well, and so has the engine. Don’t miss out on it.

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Mad "r4gs" Zombie

Deposited on this planet sometime in the late 1980s, this being was quick to discover the joys of binge-gaming and has long since mastered the art of the 16-hour game session, and evolved to survive on a minimum of food.

SKOAR! is India's Premier Gaming Website. SKOAR! began its journey as a bi-monthly publication in 2003 and has since kept growing. Through this journey, it has evolved from a purely print magazine to an interactive magazine and now, has made its foray into the digital space. BTW, why on earth are you reading this part? Ran out of articles to read? Weren't we entertaining enough? Maybe you're just bored, so you might as well go pester the editor or troll someone in the comments ;-)